Two Simple Swing Drills to Produce a Power Fade (Video) - by Pete Styles
Two Simple Swing Drills to Produce a Power Fade (Video) - by Pete Styles

Here’s two really awesome little drills to help you get this feeling of power fading. So two slightly different drills; we’ll do the first one first. As we setup to the golf ball this time, I’ve just got a 5 iron but 5, 6, 7 is going to be great for this drill. And you can do about 10 repetitions of this. I always think it’s quite nice. Take in a good address position. We’re only going to swing the club back, left arm to horizontal, shaft to vertical. So it’s a relatively short backswing. But then from there we’re going to try and hit the ball as hard as we possibly can and really to focus on hitting the ball hard from here. Intend should be that we have to use the bottom half very aggressively.

In fact if you don’t use your bottom half, you’ll probably find that you just bring your hands and arms down and it doesn’t really fly very far because you’ve only had a short backswing. So that short backswing puts the club in a decent position but now I’ve got to work excessively hard with the bottom half and that’s really a good key that’s synonymous with people who hit that big power fade. If you look at Bubba Watson particularly, you know very dynamic through his legs as he drives through the golf ball. So, here we go, we’re going to make a very short backswing, just get the club to horizontal – sorry, the arm to horizontal, club to vertical and really work through the ball very aggressively with the bottom half. So a short backswing and then really turn through the ball very quickly. And if I’m really through with my body, my hips and my legs are through the ball, we’ll cut across that ball a little bit and see the ball come out with a power fade. So I’ve got the short backswing very aggressive leg action. That’s a great way of generating that feeling of power fade. And repeat that exercise, maybe up to 10 times would be okay because I think that’s a great exercise to really get your body working and get that bottom half going nicely. Now the second exercise, I’m just going to turn side on and hit is from – well, I’m not going to hit it, but with then I work from this angle. Making a power fade swing from here is about controlling the club face position and having the club face actually open to the path of your intended swing. So if we can set ourselves up but actually aim the feet left of target but keep the club face aiming at the target. Then swing along the line of your feet. It’s going to feel therefore like you’re swinging left of your target and the club face is pointing at your target. And that keeps the face open in relation to the path and if you’ve watched the videos in this mini series, we understand face open to path is how we hit the ball with that left to right power fading kind of shape. So if I’m picking a target out here on the range, I’ve got a flag out there at about 150. I’m going to aim my feet down the left side of that flag but point the club back towards that flag and if I swing down my left side now following my foot alignment, I’ll probably see the ball start at or just ever so slightly left of target and then cut back a little bit. Then I can modify how much opening and closing of the club face I do to create that perfect power fading position. Then when you bring your stance back to normal and square, we can understand how the feeling is to have the club face open to target – oh sorry, not open to target, open to path because the path would be more left, the club face is slightly more right in relation to the path. We’re going to get that ball curving back. I apologize if this sounds a little bit open close path face. But if you follow this carefully you will be able to hit that power fade shot. So I’m aiming down the left side with the body, aiming slightly more right with the face, then swing down the left side on the foot line, and we really start to see that ball move from left to right in the air. We create quite a powerful fading swing. And if I look down the line of my divot, I can see the divot is definitely cut down that left side which was the line that my feet were sitting on. So that’s two really great drills to help you work out how you can create that power fading idea. 2015-08-12

Here’s two really awesome little drills to help you get this feeling of power fading. So two slightly different drills; we’ll do the first one first. As we setup to the golf ball this time, I’ve just got a 5 iron but 5, 6, 7 is going to be great for this drill. And you can do about 10 repetitions of this. I always think it’s quite nice. Take in a good address position. We’re only going to swing the club back, left arm to horizontal, shaft to vertical. So it’s a relatively short backswing. But then from there we’re going to try and hit the ball as hard as we possibly can and really to focus on hitting the ball hard from here. Intend should be that we have to use the bottom half very aggressively.

In fact if you don’t use your bottom half, you’ll probably find that you just bring your hands and arms down and it doesn’t really fly very far because you’ve only had a short backswing. So that short backswing puts the club in a decent position but now I’ve got to work excessively hard with the bottom half and that’s really a good key that’s synonymous with people who hit that big power fade. If you look at Bubba Watson particularly, you know very dynamic through his legs as he drives through the golf ball. So, here we go, we’re going to make a very short backswing, just get the club to horizontal – sorry, the arm to horizontal, club to vertical and really work through the ball very aggressively with the bottom half.

So a short backswing and then really turn through the ball very quickly. And if I’m really through with my body, my hips and my legs are through the ball, we’ll cut across that ball a little bit and see the ball come out with a power fade. So I’ve got the short backswing very aggressive leg action. That’s a great way of generating that feeling of power fade. And repeat that exercise, maybe up to 10 times would be okay because I think that’s a great exercise to really get your body working and get that bottom half going nicely.

Now the second exercise, I’m just going to turn side on and hit is from – well, I’m not going to hit it, but with then I work from this angle. Making a power fade swing from here is about controlling the club face position and having the club face actually open to the path of your intended swing. So if we can set ourselves up but actually aim the feet left of target but keep the club face aiming at the target. Then swing along the line of your feet. It’s going to feel therefore like you’re swinging left of your target and the club face is pointing at your target. And that keeps the face open in relation to the path and if you’ve watched the videos in this mini series, we understand face open to path is how we hit the ball with that left to right power fading kind of shape.

So if I’m picking a target out here on the range, I’ve got a flag out there at about 150. I’m going to aim my feet down the left side of that flag but point the club back towards that flag and if I swing down my left side now following my foot alignment, I’ll probably see the ball start at or just ever so slightly left of target and then cut back a little bit. Then I can modify how much opening and closing of the club face I do to create that perfect power fading position. Then when you bring your stance back to normal and square, we can understand how the feeling is to have the club face open to target – oh sorry, not open to target, open to path because the path would be more left, the club face is slightly more right in relation to the path. We’re going to get that ball curving back. I apologize if this sounds a little bit open close path face. But if you follow this carefully you will be able to hit that power fade shot.

So I’m aiming down the left side with the body, aiming slightly more right with the face, then swing down the left side on the foot line, and we really start to see that ball move from left to right in the air. We create quite a powerful fading swing. And if I look down the line of my divot, I can see the divot is definitely cut down that left side which was the line that my feet were sitting on. So that’s two really great drills to help you work out how you can create that power fading idea.